Dear Vic
No offence intended. Perhaps it was a bit OTT for me to describe your
"different version of the same truth" as dangerous, since much of the debate
is now historical. It's just that I get a little sceptical when I smell
dogma rather than reason in a statement, especially an anonymous one. My
msmail software is so darned user friendly that it removes all the
source/origin details (I wish it didn't, as I have to dig to find actual
email addresses).
We have a common interest in Lancs - it was me that kitted out the Police
M62 range-rovers at Birch with doctor kits in 1988, and appeared on The Acid
Test (Granada TV) in a scrapyard, demonstrating vehicle-occupant contacts. I
was involved with a 3 year TRRL (now TRL) study matching injuries to vehicle
damage. I left M'cr in 1990, so we wouldn't have met, but well done with
what you've achieved in the last 10 years.
Posted to the group as a public flogging for my scepticism !
Rob Cocks Hong Kong
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From: acad-ae-med-request
To: INTERNET:[log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: Airbags
Date: Friday, August 27, 1999 12:37PM
Message text written by INTERNET:[log in to unmask]
>The posting below appears to be anonymous (why?),
(Because I hit send before I put my name at the bottom. Sorry, but it
should have shown up in the mail source. The name is Vic Calland, I was one
of the doctors that founded Med-ALERT (the Lancashire BASICS group) ten
years ago. I attend around 130 accidents a year. I am a Fire Service
approved MVA extrication Instructor as well as a Pre-Hospital Emergency
Care Instructor.)
but requires comment
because it contains some potentially dangerous misinformation:
(Which bits are potentially dangerous?)
1. <<The original airbags that were devolped in the States were safer than
the
current bags>>
The "original" US airbags were not safer - most of the fatalities reported
have been due to them, not those found in the UK.
(The original air bags were used in the early 60's in the top of the range
American cars. They were safer because the fill was adjusted to the
distance the seat was from the bag. However they were also exceedingly
expensive and were never used extensively. The next generation were the
cheaper, non adjustable bags that started being fitted in the late 80's.
>From then to the 1st September 1998 there were 2.6 million airbag
deployments (give or take a few). There had been 113 deaths in that period.
The majority of deaths occurred in the cheaper mass produced airbags but
not in the original American designs of the 1960's. Fifty one of the deaths
were children who were in the front seat and not wearing a seatbelt or were
leaning forward at the time.)
2.<<The explosive in an air-bag is Sodium Azide>>
Not in all of them. Cars come in all ages and makes, and other propellants
are found.
(Agreed, but "Sodium Azide is principal gas-generating agent used to
inflate automobile supplemental restraint systems" D.Trout,E.Esswein,
T.Hales, NIOSH, Cincinnati, OH)
3.<<The explosive in an air-bag is Sodium Azide, but it is irritant. If it
falls into an open wound it can also drop the blood pressure like a stone>>
hmmm..... I'd be very surprised. There are reports of bronchospasm, but the
only cases of hypotension were reported in industrial poisoning. Do you
have
a case or is this folklore ?
(The blood pressure case relates to inhaled sodium azide at a sodium azide
production plant. The air concentration of sodium azide was five times the
NIOSH recommended exposure level. One individual of ten monitored employees
had a systolic pressure drop of at least 20mmHg. The data sheet on Sodium
Azide says " Laboratory experiments in animals have shown Sodium Azide to
produce a profound hypotension effect" Particles of unexploded Sodium
Azide are to be found in a deployed airbag, and it is reasonable to assume
it is unwise to let debris from the bag fall onto open wounds. Careless
handling of a deployed airbag can do just that, particularly if the
paramedic is stuck with his A's & B's and hasn't got around to dealing with
wound dressings. The data sheet goes on to say that it is toxic by
inhalationingestion, and skin absorption. It advises copious irrigation of
eyes or skin for at least 15 minutes. I would have thought it far more
dangerous to ignore the possibility of wound contamination than to advise
people of it.)
Evidence please.
(That do you?)
Vic Calland
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